Premonition
by Evil Cosmic Triplets
Summary: Danny's been having the same dream for going on five years now, and he's still no closer to understanding the meaning of it. What do a tattooed man, standing with his Grace, and a little boy laughing on a beach have to do with him?
1. Prologue In a Dream

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this. A works cited will be included at the end of the story.

**A/N**: Written for the cottoncandy_bingo square - laughter. My fellow ECT writer made a kind of sort of sarcastic suggestion that I should have Danny hearing laughter and wondering why he's hearing it, and then finding out that it is from the future and, that, because this is fluff (something she doesn't really like), a baby should be involved and, of course, Steve too. Well, this is what evolved from that. Thanks go to _csi_sanders1129_ for reading and encouraging me as I wrote, and to my fellow ECTer for planting the seed in the first place. Originally, this would've been far less fluffy - laughing kid in the line of fire. Also, this features something that runs in my family - dreaming of babies before they are born.

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Laughter bubbles up inside of Danny and spills over, past his lips. He can't remember the last time he felt this happy. Danny looks to his left, and he sees a five year old boy with tan skin, dark hair and eyes the color of the sky on a cloudless day. It feels like the boy's family, though Danny's never seen him before. The word supplied to him by his subconscious is, son. He feels a stab of pride when he looks at the little boy, though the boy looks nothing like him.

Grace is standing next to the little boy, but she looks older than she is now, and there's a man with a hand on her shoulder. Danny can't see his face, just the faint outline of a tattoo beneath the edge of a navy blue tee-shirt. He can hear the man's laughter as it's joined by Grace's, it's rich and melodic. It sounds familiar, yet it isn't.

None of this alarms Danny, though it should, because he doesn't know who the hell the man is, and he's touching his baby girl. They're all laughing, but Danny doesn't know what they're laughing at. Whether it's a joke or something that they're all seeing.

They're standing together on a beach as though posing for a photograph; his toes sink into warm sand the color of straw. It's not a beach Danny recognizes. There are palm trees swaying in a gentle breeze, marking it as a beach outside of the state of New Jersey. It feels like he's at a celebration, but Danny's at a loss to understand what's being celebrated. He just feels overwhelmed by joy and his heart fills with love as he glances, once again, at the man standing next to him.

Danny wakes with a start, and draws a gasping breath of air into his lungs. Once he catches his breath, he falls back against his pillow. He's sweating and his heart is racing. He feels lost and alone. Bereft.

He reaches for his phone, because this dream isn't like any of the others he's had in the past. For one thing, it felt real, like it was actually happening and he was there, wherever there was. For another, it didn't involve the birth of a baby, like all of the rest of his prophetic dreams have.

He turns on his bedside lamp, and checks his alarm clock. It's only two-thirty in the morning. He groans, because he can't call his grandmother or mother this early, and he needs their dream interpretation skills on this one.

He returns his phone to its bedside cradle and grabs his dream journal instead. Reluctantly, he records every single detail that he can remember about the strange dream, knowing that both women will ask him if he's done so, and will interrogate him thoroughly about the dream. He's come by his detective skills quite naturally.

After he's written down every last feature of the dream in his crimped scrawl, he puts the journal back in its drawer and flicks off his bedside lamp. Sleep doesn't come quickly as he mulls over the strange dream, trying to puzzle out who the strange, yet familiar, man is, the identity of the little boy, and why Grace looked so much older than her current five years of age. It's a mystery, and when he eventually does fall into a restless sleep, he's no closer to solving it than he is five years later, after encountering the dream again and again.

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Please leave a review.


	2. Water and Electricity

**Disclaimer:** See initial chapter.

**A/N:**This story is more heavily fluff than anything else. Cholo's Homestyle Mexican (they have a facebook page with wonderful pics/vids of the North Shore - check it out) is a nice place for lunch or dinner, the Li Hing Mui Margaritas are good – huge, but good – and so is the food. Visit Hale'iwa if you're ever on island.

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Danny has inherited his mother's precognitive abilities, and while he supposes that he should be happy that he's the first male recipient in a long line of female ancestors to receive the 'gift', it isn't exactly one that he feels really comfortable having.

If it was normal, everyday precognition, Danny's sure that he'd embrace it with greater enthusiasm. But, it isn't your run-of-the-mill precognition that he's been gifted with, and, having to make a call to his cousin Claudia, or some distant relative to confirm what he's dreamt, can sometimes be very annoying, and at others, downright embarrassing.

He remembers one call in particular that he'd had to make to his Aunt Rose a few years back. Well into her fifties, she hadn't been too thrilled to receive, 'the call,' and had adamantly refused to believe him, stating that it was unnatural, and an abomination for a male, firstborn or not, to carry on the gift she herself had coveted from her sister.

Two weeks later, after visiting her doctor, she'd called back and apologized for all of the names she'd called him and announced that, yes, she was pregnant…with twins. Just as Danny had dreamt – a boy and a girl, their tiny pink faces screwed up in mewling cries, dressed in cute little ducky outfits as they were packed into Uncle Carl's new sedan.

They'd both been named after him, even though he'd been vehemently opposed to it. But, the twins were dubbed Danson and Danica, and Danny was made their godfather. Considered blessings from heaven, the twins could do no wrong. They were twin terrors is what they were.

He'd made countless calls over the years, because, his family was downright huge, and apparently they multiplied like bunnies. There were an inordinate amount of children running around with his namesake, whether a cleverly fashioned version of the name Daniel, or just the use of Dan or Daniel as a middle name. He pitied them, but his mother, and grandmother assured him that it was just their way of paying homage to him. That, and elaborate gifts he received on his birthday and Christmas from family members and their kids.

He was named after his grandmother, Daniela, who predicted his birth a full year before his mother conceived. It was solely his grandmother's dream which kept his mother from despairing when it appeared that she couldn't have children.

Most of the time his dreams only involved family members, and mostly consisted of those which would be considered 'miraculous' (and, seriously, how many 'miraculous' births could one family have?). They were births which were completely unexpected due to age, medical condition, because both partners were of the same gender, and so on and so forth. For Danny it felt like an endless stream of reasons for whatever deity had deemed fit to gift him with this 'ability' to predict future births , but his mother and grandmother were tickled pink by it all, especially when he told them that he sometimes dreamt of pregnancies that were non-family related.

He never really knew what to do when that happened, because he really had no desire to be viewed as a 'freak' by the public at large, and he usually got these precognitive dreams while working a case, or shortly after wrapping up a case. All he had to do was meet a person once, and he could be subjected to a psychic baby dream, and the overwhelming desire to tell the prospective parents about their upcoming bundle of joy, because apparently he'd inherited his mother's do-gooder conscience as well.

A police detective, who could tell you that you were going to be the proud parent of a bouncing baby boy in a year and a half, and not to give up hope on the clinics and the treatments, was not exactly common in New Jersey. Well, not really anywhere for that matter.

More often than not, when he told the almost complete strangers about the dream he'd had (and no, he wasn't stupid, he didn't actually mention that he'd dreamt of it, just alluded to a 'feeling' or some such malarkey that he hoped the couple or individual would buy), they scoffed. A few had remembered him after the birth of the child that he'd predicted and that added to the pile of gifts and the number of children in New Jersey named Daniel or Danielle.

He learned, though, to tamper down on the pull to tell prospective parents. It hadn't been easy at first, but now, when he had dreams related to cases, he kept it to himself, because it really wasn't his business, and he was starting to question why the Universe would trust him with this knowledge in the first place. Surely there were far better candidates out in the world at large who would do a much better job at whatever the heck it was that he was supposed to be doing with this rather, in his opinion, useless, gift.

"Danno." Steve's voice breaks through Danny's internal musings, and for once he's kind of grateful, because he can't seem to shake the images, courtesy of his latest dream, from his mind. "Wanna go grab some lunch?"

"Yeah, sure," Danny says, and he grabs his wallet and keys from his desk drawer and follows his partner out into the unseasonably warm afternoon air.

The heat's oppressive, and Danny can see a thick layer of vog hovering over the tops of the mountains. That, rather than his recurring dream of a tattooed man gripping the hand of a little dark-haired, blue-eyed boy, is probably what's been causing his headache.

The sound of laughter echoes in his head, vestiges of what he's taken to thinking of as 'the dream,' as he settles into the passenger seat of his car. He tosses Steve his keys; because that's just the way things are between them, and, really, he isn't in the right frame of mind to be driving right now. Not while he's trying to puzzle out the why of the dream that he'd first started having five years ago of a tattooed man, a little boy and him. All of them holding hands and laughing at something that was said, or maybe that they're seeing. The real kicker in all of this is that not only is he sandwiched in this picture with the boy and the man, but so is Grace, not as she was five years ago, but as she is now. And the dream has never wavered once, not in the five years that he's been having it off and on. Not once is he allowed a glimpse of the man's face – just the tattoos.

Danny casts a sidelong glance at Steve whose mouth is moving, and he realizes that he hasn't heard a word the man's been saying. He's been too preoccupied with his thoughts, with the resurgence of this dream that he'd thought was a thing of the past.

He hadn't had the dream for well over a year. He'd thought he was free of it, and whatever connection there was between himself, the little boy, the mysterious man, and Grace, until it started up four days ago, plaguing him every time he closed his eyes, even just to rest them. That hadn't happened the previous times that he'd had the dream – usually it was just a one-shot thing, and he'd puzzle over if for a day and then his thoughts would move onto other things.

"And you haven't heard a word I've just said, have you?" Steve turns to him and Danny feels guilty, because he has been ignoring his partner.

Danny shakes his head and digs a finger into his ear in an attempt to dispel the laughter that he can still 'hear' ringing in his head. "Sorry Steven that I cannot attend to your every whim; I've just been a little preoccupied lately."

Steve turns to face the road again, and Danny would be relieved if it wasn't for the way the muscles in Steve's jaw pop out. His partner's a study in tension. A tightly coiled cobra, ready to strike at the slightest provocation, and Danny's got to be the careful snake charmer, or he's going to be on the receiving end of a powerful bite – well-chosen words that will sting only because they'll be laced with cold, hard truth that Danny would rather not face right now.

Truths that he's been steadfastly ignoring for years, because of his grandmother and his mother assuring him that his dreams are a gift, and not a sign that he's suffering from a mental illness. Illusions of grandeur – godlike ability to predict the future, albeit an ability which is limited solely to that involving the propagation of the species – check; losing sleep because of recurring dreams – check; seeing faceless people – well, technically the man in his dreams was also headless, it was like he only got a clipped view of the stranger, like a picture that had been cropped wrong – check.

Everything points to something like schizophrenia or borderline personality. He knows, he's done the research into it, had started it in response to his first dream in spite of his mother's and grandmother's reassurance that he was perfectly normal.

"Preoccupied?"

Danny's certain that if Steven was facing him, he'd see the spark of anger in his partner's eyes. As it is, he can feel the tension coming off of Steve.

"I'd say that you've been more than just a little bit preoccupied lately Danny. This isn't the first time that I've tried talking to you, only to have you completely ignore me. What's going on? Is it Rachel? Grace? Me?" Steve does face him then, and Danny's taken aback by the hurt that he reads in his friend's eyes. "Is it because of what I told you about..." Steve just gestures in the space between them.

Danny shakes his head. "No, no it's not that. I mean, I have no idea how I feel about that particular revelation, and it's not every day that one's very masculine, not to mention, macho, partner comes out to him as bi and interested, but honestly this," Danny gestures to his own head, "has nothing to do with that." He swings his arm in Steve's direction, regretting that he's inadvertently let it swing lower than it really should have, so that it looks like he's pointing toward the man's groin, which, given the circumstances is more than a little awkward and blush inducing.

"So, this new thing you have of ignoring me has nothing to do with the fact that I asked you out on a date?" Steve's voice drips of disbelief, and he catches Danny's eyes in the rearview mirror, daring him to say differently.

"I'll have you know, Steven, that you are not the first man who I've turned down for a date. As a matter-of-fact, there've been…"

"So, you're saying there've been others, and you've turned all of them down?"

"Not all of them," Danny says, mostly to himself, and he's thinking about one man in particular – persistent, dark-haired, and olive-skinned, good kisser – but Steve has ears like a bat's radar, and if the downward turn of his lips is anything to go by, the big guy's pouting.

"Well, that's different."

"I told you, I had too much on my plate to give you an answer right now," Danny says, and he leans back in the seat and pinches his nose, because his headache has gotten worse.

When he glances at his partner's reflection in the rearview mirror, there's a hint of a smile on the man's lips, and Danny inwardly groans, because that means that at some point in time, he's going to actually have to go on a date with the man. Not that he's opposed to it, but he's just not sure it'll work out all that well.

They're like oil and water, rather more like electricity and water. There might be sparks, but in the long run, someone's going to end up getting burned. And, he suspects that someone would be one, Daniel Williams, and he isn't quite sure what would be left of him in the wreckage if he and Steve crashed and burned.

"So, that means that you'll be able to give me an answer…"

"Steven, don't press your luck," Danny interrupts his partner before he can go any further, because his headache's bordering on a migraine. "I realize that I'm irresistible, but…try to keep your hands off of me, would you?" Danny bats at Steve's hand when the man places it against his forehead.

Steve's hand stays right where it is, and Danny rolls his eyes when his partner frowns. "No fever." Thankfully Steve pulls his hand away, but manages to squeeze Danny's shoulder before his hand returns to the steering wheel.

"Stop pawing at me," Danny says, brushing off his shoulder, because he wasn't quick enough to slap Steve's hand away, "we haven't even gone on a date yet, and here you are, trying to get to second base."

"So, where do you want to go?" Steve asks, and his voice is way too happy.

Danny glances in the rearview mirror and sees that Steve's grinning like a baboon – all teeth (long incisors that Danny imagines would leave an impressive mark on lightly tanned skin), pink gums, and the man's completely insane. He quirks an eyebrow and shrugs. Truth is that he hasn't really given much thought as to where he wants to go for lunch. Usually Steve makes a suggestion, or Kono or Chin shouts out an order, but, now that he actually stops to think about it, when Steve asked him out to lunch, both Kono and Chin had been strangely absent.

"Wait a minute," Danny says, fanning his hands out, "this isn't…" and really, he's got to be wrong about this, because Steve wouldn't stoop this low, would he? "This isn't supposed to be a date is it?"

The look on Steve's face is a little too innocent to be believed and Danny points a finger at his partner's reflection in the mirror and shakes his head when Steve shrugs his shoulders and says, "Maybe…no, uh yes, okay, not really, I just, well, I, and actually itwasKono'sidea, to you know, get you out of the office on my own and…"

Danny laughs, and the look that Steve turns on him is a mixture of hurt and embarrassment. The man's actually blushing – the tips of his ears are full on red, and his cheeks are a little flushed – but he's doing his best to pull off nonchalance, and it's rather endearing. Danny thinks that, maybe, he just might be willing to forgive the man, after he's ripped him a new one, that is.

"And what, you'd just have your wicked way with me, or maybe I was supposed to fall madly, deeply in love with you like I'm the female lead in some silly romantic sitcom, and you're the leading man? Was that the plan Steven? Because I've got to tell you if that's the best that you and a scheming Kono have got up your sleeves, it's a safe bet that you and I will not be going down _that_ road anytime soon."

And now Steve is pouting, Danny can see it out of the corner of his eye, and he feels just a little stab of remorse, but seriously? Kono and Steve working together to bamboozle him to go on a date, that' just a little over the top, even for his boss and their eager to please rookie.

"Look…" Danny sighs, raises his hand mid-way between them, because he's kind of not sure how to phrase this next bit, and he doesn't want to let Steve in on that little secret, that he doesn't always have the right words for each and every occasion.

"It's not that I don't…like you, or anything. And, I'm not offended by you asking me out, but this, what you and Kono have cooked up, babe, it borders on kidnapping, and, while I'm flattered that you want to, how did you phrase it, 'give us a go,'? I've just got a lot, as I said, on my plate right now, and…" he makes the mistake of catching the reflection of Steve's eyes in the mirror, and discovers that, sadly, Grace is not the only one gifted with irresistible puppy dog eyes which means that, if anything does happen between Steve and him, he is a goner.

"Fine, I'll go on a date with you, but not now. I want a real date, with flowers," he holds up a forestalling finger when Steve opens his mouth, "okay, no, no flowers, because I'm not the girl in all of this. I want a real date, at a fancy restaurant; scratch that, burgers and beers at some place on the North Shore." Danny finishes with a flourish of his hands and a stab of his finger that doesn't quite hit Steve in the chest.

"Burgers and beers?" Steve asks, smiling. "You sure Danno? No big bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates, maybe a teddy bear with a blue bow? Not some fancy restaurant on Maui where they serve lobster and veal, or something exotic like water buffalo?"

"Water buffalo? Do they have places that actually serve water buffalo in Hawaii?" Danny turns to look at Steve. "And who in their right mind eats water buffalo?"

"Lots of people Danny," Steve says seriously, but he's smirking.

"Okay, so say there're an indeterminate amount of connoisseurs of water buffalo cuisine currently living on the island of O'ahu. I, Steven John McGarrett, am not one of them."

Danny crosses his arms over his chest, and realizes that his headache's now just a light buzz at the edges of his temple, and that, somehow, his partner has managed to take his mind off of that stupid, chronic dream that hasn't got a chance in hell of coming true, because he doesn't know any tattooed men that he's even remotely close to, other than Steven. And there's no way that he and Steven are going to adopt a five year old boy. Not in this lifetime.

"So, burgers and beers," Steve says, "how's tonight sound? Nineteen hundred hours?"

Danny shakes his head, plucks at a piece of black thread on his shirt and frowns as he dangles it from his fingers and lets it fall onto the floor of the car before he turns his gaze to Steve once again. "Not one of your Army buds here Steven; you've got to speak plain old American English if you want to date me. What time is that by normal standards anyway, five or six?"

"Subtract twelve from nineteen and you get seven. Seven o'clock, Danny. And, it's Navy, not Army, but you already know that, because god knows that I've said it to you a million and one times if I've said it once," Steve says around a frown. "And, if you're not dead-set on burgers and beers, there's this Mexican place in Hale‛iwa, Cholo's, that's got a pretty mean Li Hing Mui Margarita."

"Cholo's?" Danny mouths, "You planning on getting me drunk so that you can take advantage of me? On our first date?" Danny raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. "And, tonight?" Danny rubs at his temples, hoping to get rid of the rest of his headache. "A little short notice don't you think?"

"We can do this another night if you aren't feeling well."

Though Danny's no longer looking at Steve, he can feel his partner's eyes on him. He can picture the look on the man's face, and knows that Steve's wearing his, deep-frown-of-concern-face, or something Danny would totally cleverly name were this ongoing headache a little less clingy.

"No, no, I'm fine, just a headache, it's better now," Danny says, and even though his headache isn't completely gone, he musters a tight smile, and looks at Steve. "You know, we're supposed to be going to lunch, and here we are talking about dinner. How about if we make it through the afternoon first and then I'll go to dinner with you, alright?"

Steve nods, but Danny can tell that there's something else on his partner's mind in the way the muscles of Steve's jaw tense. "You're sure that it's just a headache? Because seems to me that 'round about the time I asked you out, you've been oddly preoccupied…"

Danny cuts in before his partner can get to the crux of the matter, because he really doesn't want to let Steve in on his odd family secret, or the fact that he could possibly be mentally ill. "Steven, look, what's on my mind has nothing to do with you. Believe it or not, my world does not revolve solely around you and your various agendas. I had a life before I met you, and…seriously, we're going to Kamekona's shrimp truck for lunch today? Someone sure knows how to wine and dine the object of their affection. "

"Look, you don't want to go out with me, just say so Danny. I like Kamekona's shrimp; you didn't tell me where you wanted to go for lunch, so I made an executive decision." Steve's face is an emotionless mask.

"Executive decision," Danny repeats, and he puts his hands on the dashboard, blinks at the too bright sunlight streaming in through the windshield as his headache spikes. He should've known that it was too good to be true, that his headache would disappear. "Executive decision, see, that, right there, Steven, is why this," he gestures between them, "won't work."

"Fine, it won't work. Do me a favor and forget I even asked you out in the first place. I'm going to get out of the car and get lunch. If you want to join me, you know where I'll be." Steve pulls the door open and steps out of the car in one, jerking movement, and then he strides, with purposeful steps, toward the truck.

Danny deftly removes his seatbelt and scrambles out of the car after Steve, because, "Hey, I didn't mean…"Danny's hurried words, shouted at Steve's retreating back, are cut off by a sudden, high squealing sound of tires screeching against asphalt.

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Thoughts? And yeah, Danny's kind of being a jerk right now. Please be kind and review (hmm... I am reminiscing about videotapes right now).


	3. Wait and See

**Disclaimer**: See initial chapter.

**A/N**: Not sure how I feel about where I leave this chapter. As always, reviews let me know that this is worth my while.

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Everything seems to move in slow motion as Danny turns. He's only halfway out of the car, still has a hand on the door and an arm propped on top of the window. Even though he's only a few feet from the car, which is now juddering to the left as the driver attempts to bring the car to a halt, he knows with an alacrity borne of intense moments like these, that he won't be in time.

But, Steve, as per usual, somehow manages to find a way out of the time warp that Danny's still stuck in. He strides past Danny, shouting something that Danny can't make out because his heart is pounding in his ears. Steve runs right into the busy street where cars on either side of the speeding, not yet stopped car, are coming to their own screeching halts.

There's a protest on Danny's lips, but it never makes it past them as Steve's left hip slams into the still skidding car and he scoops the little boy – the cause of all of this – up off the road a split second before the car would have hit him. Steve keeps moving as though getting hit by a car is an everyday occurrence and Danny's heart stops.

Once his heart starts to beat again, Danny's reaching for his badge and it's then that his legs decide to move. He ignores the honking horns and the worried shouts of witnesses, and strides over to the driver of the car that hit his partner, shoving his badge in through the opened window.

"He came out of nowhere, I swear to god." The man inside the car is shaking, his eyes are darting all over the place, and Danny wonders if he's on something.

"Five-0, you're under arrest," Danny says, ignoring the man's frantic speech, because the man hasn't stopped talking, "for reckless driving. And unless I'm missing my mark, I think that you've been driving under the influence. You'd better hope to god, or whoever it is that you pray to, that my partner and that little boy are alright."

Danny yanks the man from the car, turns him around, and slaps handcuffs on him as he reads him his Miranda rights, "You have the right to remain silent. I suggest you use it. Anything you say can and will, and I assure you that it will, be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights as they have been read to you?"

When an officer from the Honolulu Police Department taps him on the shoulder, wanting to take the man into custody, Danny almost doesn't let the officer take him. He's angry, and worried about Steve, and this man nearly killed a little boy because he was driving too quickly and under the influence of who knows what.

"I think he's on something," Danny says to the officer who nods as he places the man in the back of the police cruiser. Another officer takes care of the car, and yet another pair of officers are conducting traffic.

"Some lunch date this turned out to be," Danny mutters to himself as he makes his way over to Steve on the other side of the street, intent upon making the man go to the hospital to get checked out, even for just his own peace of mind.

The fact that the man's standing on his own two feet, and grinning at him as though nothing's happened, does little to quell the fear that's in the pit of Danny's stomach, because for just an instant Danny thought that he was going to lose Steven. And, all while he stood rooted to the spot, watching it occur as though only Steve and the boy existed, moving in a surrealistically spasmodic motion, like he was watching a movie play out frame by frame. He came too close to losing his friend just now.

Not that he hasn't come close to losing Steve countless times before, but the thought of losing the man to something as simple as a speeding car is almost too much. It hits way too close to home for Danny, because he can't protect Steven, or Grace, or anyone else he loves, from accidents.

He steps on the curb and pauses mid-stride. The vision that Steve makes, with his hand on the boy's shoulder causes Danny's head to swim and no amount of shaking his head to clear it is working, because he's seen this before, in his dreams. Except, he'd been standing next to the little boy and Grace had been standing in front of the tattooed man. They were at the beach, and there was laughter. And Danny suddenly can't breathe.

There's no mistaking that the little boy is the one who's been stalking his dreams for the past five years. He's got the same coloring – blue eyes, tanned skin, dark hair – and the same crooked, dimpled smile. And by the way he's standing there, staring up at Steve, one would think that he had just been skipping down the sidewalk, not narrowly escaped death. Just like Steve.

The sun's too bright, the sound of the resuming traffic and of people talking too loudly, blends together. Steve's lips are moving, he's reaching toward him, and Danny can't hear a word that he's saying, his eyes are averted to the man's arms, and in particular to a tattoo that is mostly covered by Steve's black tee-shirt. Danny doesn't need to see the whole thing though, because, in his dreams, it's only ever this portion of the tattoo that he's been able to see – something green and swirling and if Danny had already eaten his lunch, he'd be losing it now.

How many years has he been working with the Navy SEAL now? Three going on a million. And this is the first time that Danny's really paid any attention to the man's tattoos. Sure, he's noticed them. It's hard not to. The man wears them proudly, like battle scars or medals. But Danny hasn't truly _seen_ them before, or taken the time to look at them, and he wonders if this isn't all some cruel joke that the universe has cooked up to make his life as complicated as it can possibly be. Because throwing him together with the Navy SEAL and making them a family? –that's crazy.

Danny can almost hear the raucous laughter coming from the heavens as he realizes that Steve is the man he's been dreaming about for five years now. That Steve, his hotshot, action figure wannabe partner, is, literally, the man of his dreams. The irony of it isn't lost on him. He'd join in on the laughter, but right now the sidewalk is rushing up at him, and dark shadows are flitting across his vision, and the laughter dies on his lips.

Danny feels strong arms catching him, and in an out-of-body sort of way, he's grateful. He looks up, expecting to be blinded by a much too bright sun, but instead, he finds himself staring into twin hazel-blue eyes, mired with worry. He's being lowered onto the hot sidewalk – when is winter going to make her way to Hawaii, because this unseasonably hot weather is starting to become unbearable? – and something soft is being placed beneath his head.

When he sees Steve's naked torso looming mere inches from his face, Danny realizes that his partner has balled up his tee-shirt and placed it beneath his head. It does something funny to his stomach, and he reaches a hand up to touch Steve's face and convey his thanks, because, though he can feel his own lips moving to say the word, Danny can't hear any sound coming from them.

"Danny? Danno? You with me buddy?" Steve's patting his cheeks and Danny's blinking in the sun haloing Steve's head.

"Yeah, yeah," Danny replies gruffly when his voice finally returns.

He gives Steve a once over, eyes lingering in certain places along the man's chest, because the man's muscles are as impressive as he's heard others proclaim them to be, and why hadn't he noticed any of this before?

"Stop slapping me like I'm a fainting damsel in some paperback romance novel, and you're the page-turning hunk oozing dark pathos and charm and a dick the size of my forearm," the words fly out of his mouth before he can take them back, "what? Why are you looking at me like that? Rachel used to read these novels aloud when she was pregnant with Grace, said they…"

"Hunk, huh?" Steve's smiling fit to split his face, straddling him in the middle of the sidewalk, and that's when the rest of the world comes back to Danny in a rush.

"Get off me you big lug, you're making a scene," Danny says, pushing at Steve's chest to try to make him move, because, while he's definitely rethinking date night with Steve, and a whole hell of a lot of other things regarding the Navy SEAL, he's not quite ready to come out to the public at large in the middle of a sidewalk.

Steve blinks down at him, his lips forming a belated, 'O,' when he realizes a beat later that he's effectively pinning his partner to the sidewalk in front of dozens of curious gawkers. Some of whom are just standing there, watching with open mouths. One couple, probably from Japan, actually snaps off a couple of pictures of them as Steve helps him to his feet, pulling him in close for one of those one-armed hugs that he's famous for.

Danny finds that he wants more than just a side-armed hug from Steve, and that kind of scares him. Gift of premonition and recurring, dreams aside, he's still got some reservations about all of this, about what the universe might be asking of him by pairing him up with Steven, man-of-action, McGarrett.

"You okay?" Steve asks him once he's on his feet again.

"I'm fine Steven; put a shirt on, would you? I swear that you take any excuse you can get to remove your shirt," Danny says, not mentioning that, now that he's started to notice how good his partner looks without a shirt on, he might just be making some excuses of his own. "And what's with asking me if I'm okay? You were the one hit by a car; we should get you to the hospital and get…"

"I'm fine Danny, the car barely even touched me," Steve says, and he's giving Danny one of those indulgent looks that the detective hates. "Besides, it wasn't me who fainted. Maybe we need to get you checked out." The concerned tone in his partner's voice makes Danny's heart skip a beat.

"You are insufferable, you know that. I saw the car hit you Steven, and you can't deny what I saw, regardless of whatever ninja-like powers that you think you possess." Danny touched Steve's hip, and felt his partner tense beneath the touch. "You need to go to the hospital."

"Danny, I'm fine, and," Steve holds a hand up when Danny opens his mouth to protest, "I promise to go to the hospital and get checked out if that changes. Okay?"

"Fine," Danny says, "but if I see you limping, I'm going to hogtie you and take you to the hospital, end of story."

"Hogtie?"

Danny blinks as he imagines Steve hogtied, and he has to quickly look away. "Yes, hogtie."

"It's good to know that you care," Steve says, and there's a smirk on his face.

"Of course I care, how long have we been working together?"

"Still, it's good to hear it," Steve says, and then he pulls Danny in for another one-armed hug. "And, if it'll make you feel better, I'll get myself checked out at the hospital, but after we've taken care of the little boy."

At Steve's chin jerk, Danny turns and looks over at the little boy who hasn't so much as moved a muscle since Steve left his side. He's watching the both of them through thick lashes, biting his bottom lip, and his hands are stuffed deeply in his pockets. It all serves to make him look much older than four or five years old that Danny assumes he is by his size.

And just like that Danny goes into Dad mode, temporarily tabling Steve and his possible injury. The SEAL isn't limping and the boy looks so small and frightened, and just like the kid in his dreams.

"Hiya sport," Danny says, kneeling down in front of the kid, "you okay?"

The little boy nods.

"You lost?"

That question elicits a shrug, and a stomach growl.

"How about we go get some lunch while we try to sort things out? That sound okay?" Danny asks, not wanting to frighten the kid. "I'm a police officer," he says, showing the boy his badge, "that big guy back there, he's a cop too." He jerks a thumb in Steve's direction.

The boy seems to think things over before silently nodding and pulling his hands out of his pockets. They're grubby and sticky, like the rest of him, but he accepts the hand that Danny holds out to him and Steve's hand as well. When Danny stands to his full height, looks over at his partner, who's holding the other hand of the little boy, it's like a kick in the gut how this mirrors the dream that his mother and grandmother had told him not to dismiss when he'd come to them with questions, and disbelief, and scoffing.

He can still remember the gleam in his grandmother's eyes, the faint smile and the way she'd squeezed and patted his hand. Her wheezy, _"Just you wait and see, Danny Boy, this too will come to pass, mark my words. Mark my words." And then she'd laughed, pulled him close and kissed him on the forehead._

_"Just you wait and see."_


	4. The Universe and Pie

**Disclaimer**: See initial chapter.

**A/N: **I apologize for glossing over certain elements of this story (it was written for cottoncandy and was meant to be fluffy), and hope that no one finds that to be offensive or too terribly jarring. Thanks to those who've supported by reviewing, etc. Please don't be shy - feel free to leave some feedback; it is greatly appreciated (and even coveted). And, Anna Miller's is a nice restaraunt. It's a good place for a first date, and I think in the wee hours of the morning, it wouldn't be too crowded. It's cozy and comfortable.

* * *

After they've eaten some food, Steve's able to coax the little boy into talking, and Danny sits back, surveying the unusual scene with an undo amount of surprise, because, since when does his partner have a way with children? That's always been _his _thing, not Steve's. But watching them together, seeing the way that Steve's eyes and his face light up as he speaks animatedly with Aiden, Danny knows that he's getting a glimpse of the not too distant future and that Steve's going to make a great dad.

Danny listens to Steve and four and a half year old Aiden talk about everything from how cool Spiderman is to the fact that Aiden ran away from a group foster home and wants nothing more than to be adopted, and unless he's mistaken, Danny can sense that Aiden is eyeing Steven up for the position of adoptive dad. He's taken off-guard, however, when Aiden turns to look at him and tilts his head to the side.

"You're the man I've been seeing in my dreams," he says. "Are you going to adopt me? You and him?" Aiden asks, pointing at Steve.

Danny blinks and turns to look at Steve, his mouth opens, but he really has no words, because this is completely unprecedented. He can almost hear Steve commenting that his lack of speech is what is unprecedented. It would be something that his partner would rib him about, but Steve is looking at Danny like he's the one with the answers here.

Steve drags a hand through his hair. "Aiden, ah, things don't work quite like that. There're laws…"

When Aiden's eyes don't waver from his face, Danny interrupts, "How long have you been having these dreams?"

Aiden shrugs and looks at his hands. "Since forever. You always rescue me," he says, and looks up at Danny.

"But Steve rescued you today," Danny says, trying, but failing to understand.

"Not like that," Aiden says, crossing his arms over his chest. The frown on the little boy's face reminds Danny of Steve.

"You're the one who comes to pick me up from the house. He's the one," Aiden gestures in Steve's direction, "who saves me from the car. An' that happened today, so, when are you gonna come rescue me from the house?"

"Is something bad happening to you there?" Danny asks.

The hair on the back of his neck prickles at the thought that Aiden might be suffering abuse in the group foster home. It wasn't unheard of for foster parents to hurt children under their care, nor for fellow foster children to hurt those smaller and more vulnerable than they were. And Danny can already see, by how dirty Aiden is, that he's being neglected at the very least.

Aiden considers the question for far longer than Danny's comfortable with before giving a slight nod, and Danny's heart constricts. He knows that there's a lot of paperwork, as well as hoops that he'll have to jump through. He won't let Aiden go back to whatever home he's run away from, and, even if the little boy has to go to another temporary home, Danny's going to do everything in his power to make sure that Aiden's dream comes to fruition.

"We can't let him go back there," Steve says, and Aiden's face gets a hopeful look on it.

Danny wants to say something along the lines of, 'No shit Sherlock,' but there's a kid present, and his anger isn't at his partner, it's at whoever has been neglecting and otherwise abusing Aiden. He doesn't want to ask some of the questions that he's about to, because he just doesn't want to think about a little kid being abused by a system that's supposed to be in place to protect him.

He goes with the easiest question first. "Is someone hitting you?"

That elicits a one shoulder shrug and an almost imperceptible nod. "Uncle Michael. He sometimes gets mad when I get too loud or when I don't listen, and he hits me." Danny has to lean in to hear Aiden's whisper.

"Does Uncle Michael hurt you in other ways?" Danny asks, his stomach going icy at the mere thought of what else Aiden might be suffering at the hands of his caretakers.

"Sometimes he pulls me by the arm," Aiden says, and he shoves up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a hand shaped bruise on his upper arm. It looks new.

Danny closes his eyes and grits his teeth against a thousand words that are on the tip of his tongue, none of them appropriate to say in front of a little boy. He takes a deep breath and looks Aiden in the eye. He reaches for the boy's hand and is happy to see that the boy doesn't flinch away like many who've suffered abuse from adults do.

"I'm sorry that happened to you Aiden, and I, and my partner, are going to make sure that you never have to go back to that place again."

"And we'll make sure that Uncle Mike won't hurt anyone else ever again." Steve's voice is like steel and his eyes are a hard silvery gray.

"He doesn't like when we call him Mike," Aiden says and his breath hitches.

Danny squeezes his hand. "It'll be okay," he promises Aiden.

And, for the most part, it is okay. Danny and Steve drive Aiden back to the foster home he left, three days ago, but when they get there, neither foster parent is present. There are at least a dozen kids, ranging from the age of two to thirteen scattered throughout the house. Danny takes Aiden to his room to retrieve what few belongings he has – a couple of tee-shirts that have seen better days, some graying underclothes, a pair of jeans, and a battered teddy bear that's missing an eye – and Steve contacts HPD and social services.

The children are removed and put into other, well-vetted, foster homes before Auntie Kim and Uncle Michael return home around midnight. Danny takes note of where Aiden's placed, and promises to visit the little boy.

Statements taken from the children only serve to make Danny and Steve angrier, and as time ticks away, that anger only grows, and they exchange very little by way of conversation. Seven o'clock comes and goes, neither man even notes the time, nor acknowledges their growling stomachs. The foster parents had done more than physically abuse some of the kids. Aiden had been lucky to escape sexual abuse, being a year too young for Uncle Michael's tastes.

Arresting Michael and Kim LaRoche is one of the most satisfying things that Danny has ever done as an officer of the law. He turns a blind eye when Steve breaks 'Uncle Mike's' nose, and only steps in when it looks like his partner might cause more damage to the pedophile, but not before he socks the man in the gut himself. His fingers itch to pull out his weapon and put a bullet in the man's skull, but he wants Michael LaRoche to spend a good, long time in prison for what he's done to Aiden, to the, it turns out to be several dozens of kids who've been in his and Kim's care over the past half-decade. It makes him sick, and he wonders, not for the first time, why the universe didn't send him, and Steven, to Aiden sooner.

Danny reads them their rights when HPD gets the go-ahead from Chin to enter the house, and he and Steve watch as the pair are taken into police custody. It's late, Danny's exhausted and Steve's giving him a look that he can't identify, a 'face' he has yet to name.

"What?" Danny asks, and raises an eyebrow.

"Nothing," Steve says, but he's biting his lip and pacing in the foyer.

"Steven, whatever it is, just spit it out."

"I know it's late and that today's been a hard day, but I'm hungry and I," Steve takes a deep breath, runs a hand through his hair, "look, this isn't me asking you out on a date or anything, because you made it very obvious that you aren't interested in dating me, but would you like to go get a bite to eat?"

Danny puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. "Not a date?"

Steve shakes his head. "Not a date, just one partner asking another partner out to a late night dinner after working a difficult case."

"Love," Danny says, triumphantly, smiling and pointing a finger at Steve's face, "that's what that look is. You, Steven McGarrett, love me."

"You know what, sorry I asked, I'll drop you off at home and…"

Before Steve can get to the end of his sentence, Danny moves to stand in front of his partner and threads his fingers together behind Steve's neck, pulling the man's face close to his. Then, with butterflies in his stomach and his head spinning, he tentatively presses his lips to Steve's.

It isn't a kiss, but it makes Danny's lips tingle and his heart start racing. His breath gets stuck in his throat when Steve closes the short distance, a matter of less than a foot, between them and places his hands on Danny's shoulders, long fingers brushing the top of Danny's shoulder blades.

Steve's eyes are a bluish green, like the ocean nearest the beach on a sunny day. Danny licks his lips, catches Steve's lips with the tip of his tongue, and that's when the kiss begins. It isn't a long, passionate kiss, because they don't have time for one right now: Chin, Kono, and police officers from HPD are on the other side of the closed door, waiting for them to exit the house so that it can be locked up and everyone can go home. It's a kiss that leaves Danny wanting.

"Can I change my mind? Can we make it a date?" Danny asks, when their lips part.

"No, Danno," Steve says, pulling away and looking at Danny with a mixture of fondness and hope, "not tonight. I want to do this the right way. Take you out to Cholo's, or if you'd really rather just do burgers and a beer, we could go to Breakers."

Danny's stomach growls at the mention of food. "Fine, tonight won't be a date, but let's go get something to eat before my stomach devours itself."

Steve laughs and squeezes Danny's shoulders before releasing him and stepping away. "Sounds like a plan, wouldn't want you to starve to death partner."

Danny looks at the time on his phone, it's approaching one thirty in the morning. "Are there any places open at this hour of the morning?"

"Denny's or Aunty Mai's," Steve offers, "couple other places if you're up for a ride out of town."

"Twenty-four hours of too much light and day old coffee or Vietnamese, you really know how to win a man's heart over," Danny says as they leave the foster home, but there's no sting to his words.

"How about Anna Miller's then?" Steve asks.

Danny can see a strange look cross Chin's face, and there's no mistaking the full on smirk and wink that Kono tosses at Steve as they pass by the two of them on the way to Danny's car. Steve's already striding to the driver's seat, and Danny's shaking his head, giving Kono what he hopes is a quelling look. She just waggles her eyebrows at him and smiles all the wider.

"What's Anna Miller's got that Denny's doesn't?" Danny asks.

"Pie, and damn good omelets," Steve says.

"And where is this place?" Danny asks as he gets into the car.

"Aiea, near Pearl Ridge, not more than a fifteen minute drive, thirty tops, depending on traffic."

Danny eyes the man beside him and shakes his head. "You mean, depending upon how fast I let you drive." Danny sticks his head out the window. "Chin, Kono, want to join us for dinner at Anna Millers?" If this isn't going to be a date, Danny sees no reason not to invite the rest of the team.

Kono's yawn is way over exaggerated. "Sorry bosses, I'm going to go home and get some sleep. It was a long day."

Chin scrubs at his face, narrows his eyes at the both of them and then nods as though something has just occurred to him. "Nah, just going to go home and get some shut eye," he says. "You two go out and enjoy yourselves. Save a piece of pie for me," he throws out over his shoulder, and then he starts whistling the tune to, "Can't Help Falling in Love," from _Blue Hawaii._

"So…" Steve lets the car idle and he turns to look at Danny.

Danny's stomach growls and he gestures toward the steering wheel. "Nourishment first, talk later. Now, take me to pie and omelets or day old coffee, or twenty-four hour Vietnamese. I don't care which, because…"

Steve leans in close, and Danny can totally get behind cars with bench seats, because right now his bucket seats and the center console are in the way, but Steve's lips still manage to cut off his speech rather nicely. Though their second kiss is little more than a chaste buss on the lips – Steve's mouth is there one second and gone the next – it does make Danny blush and causes those butterflies that had invaded his stomach earlier to come out in force once again.

Once they reach Anna Millers, Danny explains about the dreams, and his 'gift,' which he wishes was far less 'girly,' even though Steve assures him that there's nothing wrong with being able to predict the birth of children, and that he finds it kind of cool. Danny's almost positive that the Navy SEALs humoring him, but Steve insists that he doesn't find it off-putting, and he asks how many times Danny has held his tongue over the past three years rather than telling a suspect or the family of a victim about an unexpected birth in their future. Danny's lost count, but each and every one of them is recorded in a journal, because old habits die hard. They discuss Aiden, and what his dreams mean, if he too has a gift.

At some point during the conversation, they wind up holding hands beneath the table. Steve's thumb is rubbing a steady circular pattern across the knuckles of Danny's hand in a manner which is somehow both soothing and stimulating. Their knees are touching, because the booths aren't spread out all that far apart and Steve's legs are gargantuan in length. Danny doesn't mind though. It feels intimate and new and like they've been at this for a lifetime.

When he falls, he falls hard and fast and Danny hopes to god that Steve, and the universe, know what they're doing when it comes to his heart, because he doesn't think he can stand to have it broken again. Not after Rachel. Danny isn't gay, or bi, or whatever – he's not into labels – but for Steve, he's willing to redefine his definition of what love is and what makes up a relationship.

At the end of the night, which is actually five in the morning, Steve drives them back to his place. Danny crashes on the couch with the TV on low and Steve goes up to sleep in his bed. It's familiar and safe and the kiss that he presses to McGarrett's lips as they reach the man's door, because date or not, it's the proper thing to do, does not suffer from a lack of passion. It's toe-curling and knee-buckling, and everything that Danny could ever hope for in a kiss, and apparently it has the same effect on his partner if the way the man sags against the door and fumbles with his keys is anything to judge by.

Danny feels warm and comfortable, and sleep comes easily. When he dreams, he dreams of laughter on the beach with Grace, Aiden and Steve beside him. It all comes together for him when he sees his grandmother smiling down on them and hears her whispered, _"Didn't I tell you Danny Boy?"_

* * *

Again, feedback is greatly appreciated.


	5. Epilogue of a Dream

**Disclaimer:** See initial chapter.

**A/N: **Fluffy ending, where the world is rearranged into an idealized version of what some believe it should be, others feel it shouldn't, i.e. same sex marriage is legal in the state of Hawaii. Feedback letting me know how you liked the ending of this particular tale would be greatly appreciated. Mahalo for reading, and for those who have supported and encouraged me through reviewing.

* * *

"Family portrait!" Kono shouts at them, and she waves them all into position.

At his cousin's insistence, Chin helps manhandle them into place. Danny's never been more grateful for the team he's come to regard as family than he is at this moment, even with Chin tugging on his arm and repositioning him half a dozen times according to Kono's nods and frowns.

Grace settles in front of Steve and Chin wedges Aiden in between Steve and Danny. Aiden's a little unsure of where he fits into all of this, though Danny has assured him time and again, during his visits to the little boy's foster home, that he's a part of their family – to be made official by a judge later that day, the same judge who'd officiated over his and Steve's marriage ceremony that afternoon.

Maybe it's this big step that they're taking, actually making a public commitment to each other in a same-sex marriage – the first in the state of Hawaii now that the law has been passed. Or maybe it's because their marriage has been sanctioned by the governor of Hawaii, and the visiting President. Or maybe it _is_ the universe at work that's making all of this possible. Whatever it is that paves the way for Danny and Steve to legally adopt Aiden, Danny doesn't know, and he doesn't care, because it means that he and Steve and Grace and Aiden can be a real family in the eyes of the law.

There are palm trees swaying in the wind, the sky is blue. A local band, scrounged up at the last minute by Kamekona, is playing, "The Hawaiian Wedding Song," from _Blue Hawaii._ Danny looks over at Steve, pride and love and something he can't even identify wells up in his heart.

He feels tears pricking at the back of his eyes, and blindly reaches for Steve's hand, squeezing it and taking comfort from the warm pressure as his partner, in more ways than one, squeezes back. He mouths, 'I love you,' to Steve, and grimaces when Kono punches him in the arm.

He frowns at her and rubs his arm. "Ouch."

"Ah, quit being a baby, I barely tapped you, and pay attention Danny McGarrett-Williams," Kono says, "it's photo time. You and the boss man can save all of that googly-eye stuff for your honeymoon."

The laughter starts with Steve who's staring at Danny with a look that communicates that he thinks his partner is a complete idiot for provoking Kono and there's so much love in Steve's look that Danny fears he's going to choke on it. Steve's laughter is contagious. It swiftly moves to Grace, to Aiden, and finally it catches up to Danny whose got his hands on his hips and is scowling at his family, because, even in jest, Kono packs a mean punch, and it really did hurt.

As the wind kicks up a notch, bringing with it the briny scent of salt and the spicy scent of plumeria, Danny is reminded of the dream. Kono, apparently giving up on them striking the perfect pose, starts taking photos. It's an afternoon that Danny won't soon forget – one that he's dreamed of for five years, and will continue to dream of for years to come.

* * *

I'm contemplating a continuation of this story, which would involve more of Danny's ability to 'see' into the future, as well as Aiden's. If there are any readers who would be interested in something like that, please let me know (PM or in a review). Someone did indicate an interest in an mpreg story. Thoughts?


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